Begin Again Read online

  Begin Again

  By

  Sarah Sanders

  Copyright 2019 by Sujata Garimélla

  All rights reserved.

  Published by O Word

  Also by Sarah Sanders

  Jump Then Fall

  Also by Sarah Sanders

  Twice as Nice

  A Quick Note from Sarah Sanders…

  There is nothing as rewarding for a writer as knowing their work is read. I have been blessed to receive phenomenal love from all you beautiful people. You guys sent my first full length novel, Jump Then Fall, to #6.

  I am moved and humbled.

  Thank you 

  They say writing is a lonely business.

  It isn’t.

  It is solitary work but never lonely because when you are writing you’re living with your characters. When you’ve finished writing you are living with your readers.

  I sincerely hope that all of you enjoy this book and the beautiful women in it.

  Coming Soon

  Coming Soon

  Coming Soon

  Dedication

  Kendall Blair…this is for you.

  For your unstinting support

  For your unparalleled intelligence

  For your generosity with your time

  For having given us Yuputka: The Phantom Sensation of Something Crawling on Your Skin

  For your humour and guidance

  For being unflappable

  For keeping me in time and on track

  Thank you!

  Crash and Burn

  Picture to Burn

  Love Story

  Today was a Fairy Tale

  State of Grace

  Crash and Burn

  “Davie, don’t…please don’t.”

  Can I say I tried not to cry? I don’t know, because there was no stopping the tears falling like a waterfall down my cheeks.

  Usually, I am not a crier. In fact, I can be quite stoic. Few, very, very few people have ever seen me cry.

  But this is not exactly a usual circumstance. It is not every day that a girl gets dumped one week before her wedding.

  The reason? “Space” he said. Really? Really? Isn’t the whole point of marriage “togetherness”?

  What did he imagine when he proposed to me? That we’d be leading separate lives?

  Why do people get into relationships when they really only want to be single with a convenient fuck-cum-activity buddy on call? Why propose marriage and a lifetime to someone only to then destroy them?

  But I can’t say that these were the thoughts going on in my head when David unceremoniously hung up on me…on my pleading. Happy weekend to me.

  There were no thoughts. Only a feeling of devastation. Of being shattered. Of being crushed. I swear every single internal organ was imploding and crushing me with the weight of my emotions.

  I need air.

  I need to scream.

  I need a drink.

  Five minutes. That is what it took him to end our relationship. That too on a call. The jerk.

  Five minutes is what it took for me being deliriously happy about my impending marriage to being a carnage.

  Five minutes for the last eight years of my life to be wiped out.

  So maybe my tears were not unjustified. Maybe they were completely justified. Maybe…God! I really need a drink. Like, right now!

  I stagger out of the little store I had dived into to get out of the unseasonal rain but now I leap right back into it. With the rain pelting down I don’t know whether they are tears running down my face or rain water.

  Bella’s Lounge…I had seen the lurid pink signboard with a self-satisfied cat in a martini glass a number of times but never felt like going into the place. It wouldn’t have been my choice of a watering hole even now, except for the fact that it was the closest to where I was.

  I stumble in. The large lady at the door, who might or might not have been the bouncer probably took pity on me and waved me in as soon as she saw me approach.

  My black-as-night waist length hair is soaked through to the scalp, I’m sure my mascara is running, my nose is red and I am an utter mess. If that self-satisfied cat on the signboard had all its joy sucked out of it, struggled through being drowned and then had the bejesus scared out of it by a whole pack of large dogs, it would probably come looking something close to me.

  “Take the door on the left and go down the stairs, honey,” she says kindly.

  The tiny corridor is pulsing with sound. Loud sound. Split-you-head noise.

  I reach the door on the left where a woman in a maroon pantsuit is waiting with the door open for me. I freeze a moment on the top stair because the lighting is dim. I grip the railing to walk down.

  A feeling of falling down a rabbit hole comes over me. My entire life is in a free fall and this going down into the dim basement of a bar with a lurid pink sign seems to be a metaphor for the way my life in going downhill. Into an abyss.

  As the door shuts behind me, the sound gets muted to something more bearable. Okay, so the killing noise was coming from behind the other door. This area has loud music, but it’s not head-banging. It is crowded. All tables and chairs are occupied and many bodies are writhing in the middle.

  I make to the bar and plonk myself on a barstool. I need that drink. I need to get numb. I need to get high. I need it all fast.

  “Tequila,” I say to the bartender.

  One shot down. I don’t expect to be drinking for a long time or much, so I pay for each drink as I place the order.

  Two.

  Three.

  Three should’ve done the trick because I am not a drinker. I’m quite a lightweight when it comes to alcohol. In fact, I can sometimes get drunk on a single pint of beer. But, of course, no such respite for me today.

  Alcohol is not dulling the devastation that has totalled me.

  Wait, why is it that what I am feeling is devastation and not pain? Oh! Does that matter?

  Maybe my senses are so fried that they can only process one emotion at a time and they are currently fixated on the largest one.

  I need to use the restroom. I ask the bartender where it is and she points to the furthest corner behind me. I will now have to swim through a sea of humanity to reach it. Great…I just can’t get a break today.

  Have I mentioned that I hate human beings right now? Well, I do…so there.

  I get off the barstool and start off. And I realise that the alcohol has hit me. Very hard. My legs are wobbly and I cannot walk straight.

  I take support of every single piece of furniture on the way. A lot of helpful hands lend me stability when there is no furniture. Hands on my elbow. Hands on my arm. Hands holding my hand. And even a hand on the small of my back. People may not be all that bad, after all.

  Does this place have an unusual number of women? I wonder about this as I blearily look up at the latest helpful person to thank her.

  No, not an unusual number of women…there are only women here. Looks like I’ve stumbled into a lesbian bar.

  Maybe that is fate telling me to stay away from men. Maybe after what David…the asshole…just did to me, the universe wiped out all men from the face of the earth.

  And maybe all those hands weren’t entirely helpful and altruistic.

  I get into an empty stall inside the restroom, pull down my panties and sit on the commode. I rest my head against the partition and a fresh flood of tears overtakes me.

  I know this time I am fighting for control, but cannot stop. I can literally see the last eight years with David unfolding like a movie in my brain.

  Each memory make me cry harder. I am so tired of crying. I have cried so much already that I am now nauseous. I cry with giant heaves.

  “Kat,” a voice
calls out. A husky voice. Low pitched. Rather sultry. And definitely feminine. No, how can someone have recognised me here?

  Though I’m not a homophobe, life has worked out in such a way that I don’t know many gay people. Probably just one.

  Maybe it’s a coincidence. Kat is not all that uncommon a name. There are any number of names that are shortened to Kat.

  “Katrina Dali…where are you?” Definitely for me.

  I don’t want to respond. I don’t want to see anyone. Especially anyone who knows me. Especially if I will need to talk to that person. Universe, why can’t you just let me sit in this vestibule of unhappiness and continue being a bubble of misery?

  Footsteps move towards my stall and come to a stop just outside. I think my sniffles give me away. I am obviously not as soft and quiet as I think I am.

  My piteous sounds are the audio version of the breadcrumbs that made the path to the cottage. Damn!

  “Sweetie, are you okay?” There is concern lacing the question.

  I think it is the endearment and the concern from this unknown woman that does me in. I cannot hold it back any longer.

  I am just about able to unlatch the door before turning around, going down on my knees and throwing up into the pot with the worst noises ever made in the history of throwing up.

  Soft hands hold back my hair. “Cold water and a wet napkin,” the voice says to someone with urgency. My hair is transferred into one hand and the other strokes my back gently.

  I am sobbing hard and heaving horribly. I seem to have finally got rid of my guts, my kidneys, my lungs and my liver. It is just the damn heart that is being screwed tighter and tighter with a vise in my chest that refuses to jump out and leave me free.

  Gentle hands stroke my head and urge me to get up. I get off my knees, stand up and when I try to turn around, I stumble. My panties are around my ankles. Shackles of frilly lace.

  She reaches down and pulls up my panties, briefly raising my skirt to settle the waistband. I should have some reaction to such an intimate act, but I am all out of emotion.

  I turn around to see the gorgeous face of the woman who’s been looking after me.

  Bethany Swift.

  From high school. Tumble down waves of rich shiny brown hair cascading to her shoulders and eyes the colour of milk chocolate crossed with whiskey for shine. That’s all I take in before she is leading me to the wash basin.

  I look in the mirror. I’ve never been worse. My hair is straggly. Mascara all over my cheeks. Runny red nose. Dead, almost-black eyes puffy and rimmed with red. There is sick sticking to me face and some down the front of my dress also.

  If I had to meet Bethany Swift after twenty years, it couldn’t have been a worse time. I look nothing remotely like the Prom Queen she must remember me as. I am a wet, drowned rat that has been mauled by dirty insects.

  Bethany opens the tap and cups some water in her hand using it to wash the sick off my face. She does it repeatedly till my face is clean of sick and the lines of mascara as I stand there like a limp rag doll.

  “Gargle, sweetie,” she instructs me. Oh yes, I’ve just thrown up…I need to gargle. I bend down obediently to do as instructed.

  Someone enters the restroom. “Thanks,” I hear Bethany murmur. The cold water and the wet napkin, I realise.

  I clean out my mouth thoroughly and straighten. Thankfully, Bethany has sent away the other person.

  She turns me around and wipes down the front of my dress to remove the sick on it with a wet cloth napkin. She wets it again and runs it over the here the sick was to ensure it is all gone. She places a chip of ice in my mouth and leads me out. I just follow.

  Maybe I’ve become a zombie for all the life I am displaying. Yes, maybe I died when Asshole David cut me off on the phone. Maybe with that click, life was sucked out of me and now I am this shell of a person who will forever be a marionette of anyone who chooses.

  Thank God, it is Bethany…someone who kinda knows me, and from her behaviour so far, is a kind person. A very kind person.

  “Do you have a car?” she asks. I nod. “Okay, I’m taking you home now, alright?” she asks. I nod.

  Holding me around my waist she navigates me through the mass of people to a secluded table occupied by a remarkably stunning redhead. My zombie state hasn’t taken away my ability for aesthetic appreciation.

  Bethany exchanges a few words with the redhead and fishes some keys out of the pocket of her jeans and gives the keys to the redhead.

  She leads me out, asks for my keys and asks where my car is. She never lets go of me in all the time and it is only her arm around my waist that is keeping me upright and able to take one step after another.

  I am more wasted than I thought I was.

  My car is a black Mercedes SLC. Yeah, I have a thing for hot wheels. She helps me into the passenger seat and buckles me in.

  As she is going around the car to the driver’s seat, I have the strangest feeling. I can’t place it or name it. It is not something that I have ever experienced. I try hard to grasp it.

  Cared for. It suddenly hits me. I feel cared for by Bethany, a virtual stranger. She is looking after me…looking out for me…and taking care of me in what is possibly my worst moment. I actually look at her with wonder and drink in her expression of concern and warmth.

  Neither Shitpile David nor my ex-husband, Rick the Dick, ever took care of me. If I wanted something, I had to ask for it. Shouldn’t a husband and a fiancé know if you need to be held or cuddled or if you wanted to vent? Shouldn’t they be there for you in some way?

  If it was one of them instead of Bethany with me in this state, I’d probably be getting a telling off about lack or control, indecent behaviour and a zillion other things. People can be like this too?

  “Thanks,” I mumble shakily, my voice suddenly returning with half a brain cell.

  She gives me the tiniest of smiles and keys in my address in the GPS. I think I just pass out as soon as she starts the car.

  ******

  I open my eyes. It is still night and my head is hammering. Every cell in my head has got hold of Thor’s hammer and is swinging it blindly around.

  Wait…there is light in the living room…I can see it through the open door. It is daytime…the blackout curtains in my room have been tightly drawn close. I’m glad I did that last night.

  But then I remember I hadn’t drawn the curtains.

  I try to think and regret it immediately. I groan and carefully turn to my side. I realise I am naked. Why am I naked?

  The radio-clock on the bedside table says 10 a.m. I groan again. My squinting eyes register that there are unaccustomed things on the table.

  I raise myself on one elbow to take a closer look. There are a couple of pills with a glass of water with a note saying ‘Take this’.

  Unlikely as it is, I wonder whether I’d gone out drinking with Davie last night. We never do that. And if we had and I’d got shitfaced, this is not what I’d get from him the morning after. I’d get a dressing down.

  Before the thoughts can literally make my head split, I swallow the pills. There is another covered glass with colourless liquid. On it is a note, ‘Drink as soon as you get up’.

  I take a sip. It is sweet coconut water. Ummm, that feels great going down my parched throat so I sip it and explore more. A sipper labelled ‘For rehydration…sip when, as much as, and as often as you can’.

  Another note, ‘Have taken your keys…will be back with lunch. Please sleep.’

  And then it hits me Bethany! Of course…not Cowdung David…Bethany.

  Last evening comes back to me in a rush. Creepy-Crawly David had dumped me on a call…I went into a bar…a lesbian bar…Bethany had come and rescued my sorry ass in the restroom and brought me back home. Now she is some sort of angel in absentia also. But why am I naked?

  I groan and lay my head back on the pillow and before I know it I am out again.

  ******

  When I open my eyes again,
I am feeling a little better. My head feels much better. Just a dull low-level throb now. I look at the clock. It reads 1.30 p.m.

  The landscape of my bedside table has changed again. There is the bottle of rehydration liquid which I pick at once and sip gratefully. There is a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice. And more water.